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Meet Sherif El Razzaz (Egypt; 2015 ISPA Global Fellow)

Meet Sherif El Razzaz, Founder and General Manager of the European Egyptian Contemporary Music Society (EECMS). EECMS seeks to promote contemporary music in Egypt and foster creative dialogue by building relationships with cultural institutions and ensembles at a national and international level. Within this mission, Sherif is currently working on two important new initiatives which we are thrilled to be able to present in this month’s Fellow Spotlight.

Heritage and Modernity

An exciting two year undertaking supported by the Allianz Culture Foundation, Heritage and Modernity aims to reinforce the concept of heritage as a collective social sentiment. Through high caliber artistic productions and the use of texts that reflect the region’s current state of affairs, Heritage and Modernity will spotlight heritage’s influence on everyday life, communication with others, and the development of artistic productions in the region.

Caprice

Over three years, Caprice will secure commissions from eight renowned composers spanning over three continents to compose pieces that integrate Arabic instruments into the corpus of a modern Western ensemble. Thanks to the support of the E. V. Siemens Music Foundation, the project’s first commission will be a composition for Oud and ensemble created by composers Oscar Bianchi (Switzerland) and Zaid Jabri (Syria). The world premiere will take place in 2016 at the Institute for National Arabic Music.

Sherif’s favorite part about working in this field is “the entire process, from becoming an idea, developing it, until it happens, challenging, exhausting, but great pleasure.”

When asked about his impression of his first ISPA Congress, Sherif said: “ISPA is a unique gathering, very welcoming and sincerely dedicated to the performing arts.”

To learn more about Caprice, visit EECMS's website here. More details regarding the launch of Heritage and Modernity will also be made available here.

In 2015, ISPA brought 52 Fellows from around the world to the New York Congress. We know it's impossible to meet all these emerging leaders onsite so we're highlighting 2015 ISPA Fellows in features via the member-only monthly newsletter Network and the website.